


Third Eye

by badwolfrun



Series: Nick/Greg Ficlets [5]
Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Genre: Ficlet, Gum Drops, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Grave Danger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-25 19:05:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17730878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badwolfrun/pseuds/badwolfrun
Summary: Based off of a prompt on tumblr, Nick gets a little rough one night and Greg calls him out on it.





	Third Eye

**Author's Note:**

> set post gum drops, running with the idea of psychic!greg now.

Greg should have known something was up the minute Nick called him. Nick sounded elated, surfing the waves of catharsis he received from solving the McCormick case. A certain type of elation, a dangerous one, when it comes to Nick Stokes, because Greg knows better than Nick does, that pride is the deadliest of his sins. 

And yet, he still fell into the trap of seduction laid out by Nick, as he always does. It wasn’t until his back was against the wall, his wrists pinned by his ears, that he saw that there was something hiding beneath the superficial happiness that Nick was displaying. An anger, a roughness, simmering, creeping its way as Nick forcefully smashed his lips onto Greg’s; his cheeks, his neck, his collarbone, his forehead, his ears…

It wasn’t until he pushed Nick off of him, shoving him towards the bed that he saw both sides of the internal conflict raging within Nick; the maniac playfulness plastered on his face, and the glimmer of darkness in his eyes. 

It wasn’t until Greg pounced on top of him, that Nick let Greg know  _ exactly _ what he was feeling, as he pulled onto Greg’s hair as if he were trying to fend off an attacker.

It’s in this moment, that he realizes Nick is  _ not okay. _

“How do you do it?” Greg grunts, wincing at the slight pinch of Nick’s grasp on the back of his head. He can feel five of Nick’s fingers digging into the back of his scalp, the other five nearly bruising his shoulder. 

“How do I do  _ what _ ?” Nick snarls, he’s trying to focus on Greg. There’s nobody else there, just him and Greg. Greg.  _ Greg _ . His lips are full of Greg, his hands gripping tightly onto Greg’s body, as if he were about to lose him. It’s just him and Greg, nobody else. No little girls, hiding cough syrup and gum wrappers under the bed. No creepy psychopaths, watching from a peephole in the ceiling. No fathers, who are so torn apart about losing their daughters, that they decide to exact their revenge on someone who’s only crime was doing their job. No men, screaming from the top of their lungs as they struggle to breathe under the confines of the earth surrounding them.

It’s just him and Greg, but the voices in Nick’s head tell him that they’re not alone.  

“Pretend you are okay.”

“I’m not pretending.”

“Yes you are, every single day. And it breaks my heart.”

The slick texture of hair gel slides between the strands of Greg’s hair and the skin of Nick’s fingers as Nick releases his firm grasp on the back of Greg’s head. Greg pushes himself up, sitting uncomfortably on Nick’s thighs as they both catch their breath. Their hearts pounding against their chest, their lips twitching, searching for the connection that was abruptly severed as Greg finally spoke the words that have been on the tip of his tongue since Nick came back to work.

“I told ya, G, I’m not pretending,” Nick whispers, cupping Greg’s cheek in his hand, stroking Greg’s face, trying to gently move it back towards his own. “Really, I’m okay.” 

“Nobody can be....buried alive and just be ‘okay’ after that, man,” Greg continues, feeling as if he needs to explain why he’s pushing Nick’s hand back towards him, shaking his head slightly. “We’re all-- _ I’m _ worried about you.”

Nick’s back suddenly feels stiff, he feels a throbbing sensation in his forehead, and the mattress beneath his body suddenly feels like a cold, hard surface instead of a warm, soft one. Nick curls up the hand that had just held the back of Greg’s head moments ago into a fist, slamming it into the mattress. He uses the other hand, which is still warm from the contact with Greg’s cheek to push himself up as he rolls to his side, throwing Greg off of him as he stands up from the bed, and begins to pace the room.

“Is this about what happened at the station? Did Sara tell you?” 

“She didn’t have to, I saw the tape,” 

A harsh sound escapes Nick’s body, laughing at the realization that just as he’s doomed to suffer, everyone else is destined to watch him in his torment.  He leans against the wall, folding his arms, as if he needed to further entrap himself as the walls in the room begin to cave in. 

“And considering you just had me up against the wall a couple minutes ago in a similar manner…”

“Yeah, until you shoved me onto the bed…” Nick mumbles under his breath, the corner of his lips tugging into a small smile, which quickly retracts after seeing the daggers in Greg’s eyes.

“You still have some things on your mind that you need to sort out.”

“Look, I told Sara, I’m sorry that I lost it with that...that dumbass in the station--”

“It’s not just that, Nick. Every night you wake up screaming, every time we’re on a case in a space that’s just a bit too tight, hell, every time you walk into Grissom’s office and see all his bugs, you just...you act like nothing happened--”

“What do you want me to say, Greg, huh? You-you want me to write a full report on every single nightmare I have where I’m still in...in that damn box, with that damn light, with those damn ants? You want me to tell you, how I had to hold my breath when I went down into that bunker a few weeks ago? You want me to tell you how I saw a-a picture on Grissom’s desk, of my face, covered in ants? Hmm?” 

He can feel water in his eyes, his tongue pokes out between his lips, catching a teardrop before bringing it back into his mouth, the hot, salty taste lingering for a few seconds in his mouth before he continues.

“I...I don’t want...I don’t want what happened in that box to define who I am. Part of me...part of me is still in there, and-and that part is gone. _Forever_. I’m not getting it back. But the rest of me? The rest of me made it out. I’m- _I’m_ _alive_ and that’s all that matters. And...and I’m just...I’m _trying_ , man. I’m trying to leave that part of me behind but I just _can’t_ \--”

Nick buries his head into his hands, quickly wiping away the tears as he slides down the wall. The sudden cold, rugged edges of the paint rub against his naked skin, goosebumps bubble up in his arms. His jaw clenches, his open mouth catches the tears that stream from his eyes against his will. He scrunches his face closed tight, trying to push back the waves of sobs that shake his body as the voices of victims and tormentors scream at him, telling him he’ll never escape his premature burial.

Greg, meanwhile, was getting goosebumps of his own as something in the back of his head was sounding off like an alarm, telling him to get off of the bed, get down to the floor, grab onto Nick’s hand...but even in the shroud of shadows cast by Greg’s body on top of the bed, the outline of Nick’s body seems to glow. He feels his ears prick up, he feels a soft tingling shiver spread through this body, his vision begins to cloud as the image of Nick on the ground morphs into a different Nick. A Nick that stands tall, a confident smile on his face, radiating the same glow Greg saw moments ago.  

Something in his mind, his heart, his blood seems to tell him that this is the path Nick is currently traversing, a path that he hasn’t even begun to stray away from in the slightest. A wave of relief washes over Greg, and he finally moves off of the bed and next to Nick, taking Nick’s free hand in his own, and cusping his cheek in the other.

“I think you’re doing pretty well, Nicky,” Greg whispers softly, with the most reassurance he could muster, although he feels as if the words are not his own. It feels like he’s giving Nick a reminder of something, a carrier of a message that seems to resonate with Nick on a level that Greg doesn’t quite understand. 

But Greg didn’t need to understand, nor did he see any pressing desire to, as Nick immediately lunges at Greg, his wet lips pressing against Greg’s. Greg can feel the transfer of Nick’s tears to his own cheeks, the saliva exchanged in their mouth has an odd, salty taste that was quite gross, but Greg doesn’t care. All he cares about is Nick Stokes, a broken man on a path of healing. 

And with Greg Sanders by his side, he’ll make it to his final destination. The man in Greg’s vision. The Nick Stokes that is truly “okay” and doesn’t have to pretend any more. 

“Greg?” Nick whispers out to the void behind his closed eyes. The voices are gone, there’s an eerie, but soothing silence in the air. His body feels light, as if a tremendous weight had been removed. His fingers absentmindedly move towards his forehead, to the outlines traced by Sage over a day ago. There’s nothing there. 

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For getting so…rough…”

“Pfft--Please, you don’t have to apologize for that, man. I...kinda enjoyed it, actually…” 

Nick opens an eye, to look at Greg, who’s staring at him with a devilish smirk on his face. 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah, giddy-up, cowboy, I’ll go on that ride again.” 

Contagious laughter erupts from Nick as his face turns redder than it already was, he leans himself on Greg as they stand back up, nearly losing his balance. Their laughter fades, and for a moment, their eyes meet. Their bodies melt, puddling together into a teary, sweaty mess, but it’s  _ their  _ mess. 

“Okay,” Nick breathes. A multifaceted statement. An answer to an unspoken question, a word of assurance, an echoed word spoken by the part of him that’s buried underneath the earth…a word that describes his current state of being, as he stands face to face with the man he loves more than anything else in the world. 


End file.
